Monsieur George’s conduct during the melancholy days that followed the death of Madame de Palme, the depth of feeling as well as the elevation of soul which he constantly manifested had completely won our hearts over to him.  I desired to send him back to you at once, sir; I wished to get him away from this sorrowful spot, I wished to take him to you myself, since a painful preoccupation detained you in Paris; but he had imposed upon himself the duty of not forsaking so soon what was left of the unhappy woman.

We had removed him to our house; we were surrounding him with attentions.  He never left the chateau, except to go each day on a pious pilgrimage within a few steps.  Still, his health was perceptibly failing.  Day before yesterday morning, Madame de Malouet pressed him to join Monsieur de Breuilly and myself in a horseback ride.  He consented, though somewhat reluctantly.  We started.  On the way, he strove manfully to respond to the efforts we were making to draw him into conversation and rouse him from his prostration.  I saw him smile for the first time in many hours, and I began to hope that time, the strength of his soul, the attentions of friendship, might restore some calm to his memory, when, at a turn in the road, a deplorable chance brought us face to face with Monsieur de Mauterne.

This gentleman was on horseback; two friends and two ladies made up his party.  We were following the same direction, but his gait was much more rapid than ours; he passed us, saluting as he did so, and I noticed, so far as I am concerned, nothing in his manner that could attract attention.  I was therefore much surprised to hear M. de Breuilly the next moment murmur between his teeth:  “That is an infamous trick!” Monsieur George, who, at the moment of meeting, had become pale and turned his head slightly away, looked sharply at Monsieur de Breuilly: 

“What do you mean, sir?  What do you refer to?”

“I refer to the impertinence of that brainless fool!”

I appealed energetically to Monsieur de Breuilly, reproaching him with his quarrelsome disposition, and affirming that there had been no trace of defiance either in the attitude or the features of Monsieur de Mauterne when he had passed by us.

“Come, my friend,” said Monsieur de Breuilly, “your eyes must have been closed—­or else you must have seen, as I saw myself, that the wretch giggled as he looked at our friend.  I don’t know why you should wish the gentleman to suffer an insult which neither you nor I would suffer!”

These unlucky words had been scarcely uttered, when Monsieur George started his horse at a gallop.

“Are you mad?” I said to De Breuilly, who was trying to detain me; “and what means such an invention?”

“My friend,” he replied, “it was necessary to divert that boy’s mind at any cost.”